Juice and I were discussing the agreements/TOS of Mega (of megaupload fame/infamy) that opened recently.

There is some legalese that i need clarification on.

If i upload a document of, for example, a quality control plan that is specific and tailor-made to my company, does the service i upload to have the ability to claim it as their own intellectual property?

16. You own, or warrant that you are authorised to use, any intellectual property in any data you store on, use, download, upload or otherwise transmit to or from, our service. You grant us a worldwide, royalty free licence to use, store, back-up, copy, transmit, distribute, communicate and otherwise make available, your data, for the purposes of enabling you and those you give access to, to use the website and the services and for any other purpose related to provision of the services to you.

3.1. Who owns the content that I put on the services? Content includes anything you upload to, store on, or transmit through the services, such as data, documents, photos, video, music, email, and instant messages (“content”). Except for material that we license to you that may be incorporated into your own content (such as clip art), we do not claim ownership of the content you provide on the services. Your content remains your content, and you are responsible for it. We do not control, verify, pay for, or endorse the content that you and others make available on the services.

3.3. What does Microsoft do with my content? When you upload your content to the services, you agree that it may be used, modified, adapted, saved, reproduced, distributed, and displayed to the extent necessary to protect you and to provide, protect and improve Microsoft products and services. For example, we may occasionally use automated means to isolate information from email, chats, or photos in order to help detect and protect against spam and malware, or to improve the services with new features that makes them easier to use. When processing your content, Microsoft takes steps to help preserve your privacy.

edit: accidentally a quote

Last edited by canaan on Mon Jan 21, 2013 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

canaan wrote:If i upload a document of, for example, a quality control plan that is specific and tailor-made to my company, does the service i upload to have the ability to claim it as their own intellectual property?

canaan wrote:If i upload a document of, for example, a quality control plan that is specific and tailor-made to my company, does the service i upload to have the ability to claim it as their own intellectual property?

If it says so in the TOS and you agree to that, then.....sure.

is that what it says, though? thats kind of my question. it says the uploader owns the content--this is where im confused.

is this a standard cloud service TOS protocol? im pretty new to cloud storage...seems like it could be a terrible trend, especially for people in the music industry trying to get their music out there....if thats what im gathering.

The language is broad enough that these bits "...and for any other purpose related to provision of the services to you" and " or to improve the services with new features that makes them easier to use" effectively mean that just about any use of your content is fair game under the policy, so long as the use is directed back into somehow improving the Services.... like, say, using your photos in their marketing materials..... uses of which will be entirely uncompensated by your grant of license to such use by agreeing to the TOS.

This is similar to the recent uproar over Instagram (Facebook) change to its Terms of Use. In that case, there was no opt out of the reuse; the only way you could prevent Instagram from monetizing your photos was to delete your user account. I didn't read the full TOS from either service, but if there's an opt-out, great. If not, stay away if the integrity of your privacy and your proprietary documents are considerations.

I'm looking at Google Music as a way to store my modest collection of music downloaded during my college years (Napster days). How "dangerous" would it be for me to upload these tracks given that they've jumped from three computers since being downloaded? I have a Google Nexus with no external storage and would like to be able to access my music on the device without killing my hard drive space.

Well, technically, they were illegally obtained, though it was prior to the big lawsuits. I am not worried about losing the music, as I'd keep it on my laptop, as well. What I'm worried about is legal issues. My library is under 2,000 songs, probably half of which were ripped from CDs I own.

I don't think there's any way Google can tell if a track was procured illegally. I mean, the files may have the torrent name in the metadata or something, but I don't think they comb the files. You just have to agree in the TOS that "[y]ou confirm and warrant to Google that you have the necessary rights to store in Music Storage any [music files] that you direct Google to upload or store in Music Storage..."

Fwiw, I use Google Music and love it. I've got 15,397 individual tracks on my little patch of cloud, and I've never had any problems. I know people with twice that much stored with Google, and almost none it is 'legal'. So I wouldn't worry about it. Unless, of course, you've been asking the Google box questions like "Can I get in trouble for storing illegally downloaded music on Google" while logged in to your Google account.

tifosi77 wrote:I don't think there's any way Google can tell if a track was procured illegally. I mean, the files may have the torrent name in the metadata or something, but I don't think they comb the files. You just have to agree in the TOS that "[y]ou confirm and warrant to Google that you have the necessary rights to store in Music Storage any [music files] that you direct Google to upload or store in Music Storage..."

Fwiw, I use Google Music and love it. I've got 15,397 individual tracks on my little patch of cloud, and I've never had any problems. I know people with twice that much stored with Google, and almost none it is 'legal'. So I wouldn't worry about it. Unless, of course, you've been asking the Google box questions like "Can I get in trouble for storing illegally downloaded music on Google" while logged in to your Google account.

So, based on your experience, I would be fine to upload by small library without having to worry about anything

Also, do I really have to file my credit card info in order to use it as a library for music I already own if I have no intention of purchasing in the future?

Defence21 wrote:So, based on your experience, I would be fine to upload by small library without having to worry about anything

Also, do I really have to file my credit card info in order to use it as a library for music I already own if I have no intention of purchasing in the future?

I wouldn't worry about it.

Re the credit card, I'm not exactly sure. I'm an Android user and already had a Google Wallet account before I started using Play for music.

pittsoccer33 wrote:why don't more people run their own clouds? this is the number one reason i wont ever rely on just a laptop or a tablet as my main pc.

i can listen to any of my music or watch any of my DVR programs on my phone and i dont have to waste time and bandwidth "emailing" all of it to a cloud that may or may not leak my personal info.

Think of it also as data backup. You should have three copies of important data in multiple media and locations. Most of our important stuff (financial docs/tax returns, music, multimedia, photos, etc) are on a NAS drive. I mirror that drive on an internal HDD in my PC, plus it's backed up with Carbonite, and the music also goes to Google Play. The photos and financial docs are also on DVDs.

I'm supposed to be able to configure my NAS for remote access (your 'personal cloud'), but I've never been able to get the config to work.

ive never set up a dedicated nas box but im willing to bet it has itself associated with a given "port" - say its 1234. you should be able to change it and manually assign something in case your isp blocks certain ports or its being used by something else.

you need to go to your router's setup page and allow forwarding on that port. then go to whatismyip.com and figure out what address youre assigned.